Traces…..

It’s been quite a while since I have appreciated poetry. I have memorized hundreds of poems before when I was still completing my English degree course. “A Dream Within A Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe, “There Is Another Sky” by Emily Dickinson, and who could forget “The Road Not Taken” of Robert Frost? These are poems that have marked in me. I’ve written a few poems myself; however, I could not compare them to these masterpieces. Yes, I’m being humble…I’m humble…I’m proud to be humble 😛

If I have appreciated poetry masterpieces of people I have not even met personally, how much more will I be able to appreciate works of friends? My dearest friend Paul Ellender is a genius when it comes to poetry :). I know, I may tend to exaggerate as I’m a loyal friend, but you can judge for yourself.

So, last week, P sent me some of his works. Some are really old poems hidden from appreciative readers like me. I just thought I’d share them with you. After all, a poet who doesn’t showcase his work is merely a poet in his mind. I believe P is a genius and the world needs to read his works 🙂

So here you go my loves:

Traces

by: Paul Ellender

Morning breaks,

into big city smog.

Dormant becomes restless,

restless becomes frantic…

run, run, run.

Dream creases on the face,

map routes in the sheet,

egg smears on yesterday’s plate…

traces.

Blue scratches on a bathroom door,

toothpaste smudge across a chrome tap,

wondering where my bag is…

traces.

A macrocosmic leap across the metroscape

where movement never ceases to leave a mark-

footstep on church step,

hand print on glass,

tyre marks across the street line…

traces, traces, traces.

In turn we believe,

we want to believe, we will each leave

our mark on the tracescape of the city:

(identity shelved) in the hope we will re-recognise.

We become traces, the traces us.

We the city, the city us.

But,

There are some you cannot touch. Too small.

The virginal scratches on a train line,

temporal plumes of jet-set vapour,

the cross on a map (some road fatality),

and acid etching made by invisible hands…

and the paradigmatic shift of the seasons.

A mark in time.

Traces, traces, traces.

(march 1995)

Well, what do you think my loves? Isn’t this just lovely?

Philippians 2:3-4
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.